The Real Benefit of a Colony on Mars?

Maybe the upside to the private Mars colony initiative I blogged about today is this: Instead of forever having to listen to “If we can send a man to the moon, surely we can conquer [insert random challenge],” with “we” obviously being government, the new slogan will be: “If private enterprise can create a colony on Mars, surely it can do something as simple as build roads.”

Joshua Park

There’s also the benefit of homesteading in action. No ridiculous business of the land never being owned, or being under some “international jurisdiction.” How big can a fence can the company build? Will a rival company choose to set up another colony next door? If so, how close and how would border disputes be handled?

These are the important questions that peaceful capitalists could answer properly–not those bellicose statists.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Christopher-Bell/1063326951 Christopher Bell

Maybe the real benefit would be a fresh start at human civilization.
http://plenarchist.wordpress.com/ plenarchist

It’s silly to believe roads aren’t already privately built. Does anyone really think that gov can actually build much of anything itself? All roads are built by private businesses. Construction contractors build the roads while bureaucrats eat donuts and watch from their a/c’d trailer.

The only thing gov does that private business doesn’t is steal people’s property with a gun. Gov is good at that. All public roads are built by private contractors on stolen land. So when someone whines, “But who will build the roads?” what they’re really asking is, “But who will steal the land for the roads?”

I’ve known of many homeowners who’ve been forced to vacate their property for a new road. Sure they get “fair market value” whatever that means. Some make out and many don’t and there’s no telling what they could have sold their property for on the open market. And eminent domain is regularly abused by politicians to take care of their crony buddies.

One irony of eminent domain is that it’s probably the single greatest reason (along with zoning laws) for urban sprawl that the gov-worshiping anti-sprawl crowd is always so ruffled about. Just more unintended consequences.
Joshua Park

In California, there is CalTrans, which is the state’s road building, maintaining, and destroying operation. The backhoe-ers, excavators, pavers, earth-movers, shovelers, pipe-layers, etc. work directly for the state. Many states have private businesses bid on these jobs, but not all of them.
http://plenarchist.wordpress.com/ plenarchist

Are you sure you’re talking road construction or road maintenance? I haven’t worked or lived in CA, so I could be wrong but my understanding is that Caltrans primarily uses contractors for road construction. Their current construction budget is $12.8B and they have about $12B in ongoing contracts. If they are using their own forces for construction, it’s got to be pretty minor. I’ve lived and worked in six states and they all used contractors for construction.

More highways are now being privately funded, designed and built with the DOT performing oversight only. This is known as public-private-partnership or PPP. The point being that the only real contribution gov makes in the whole transportation arena is to provide the land that they’ve stolen.
http://www.facebook.com/Donxon Daniel Coxon

the real trick will be getting to Pluto, then turning it into a giant spaceship and launching out of the solar system before the sun explodes
JackofSpades

But don’t you see Tom? The people behind these initiatives were educated in government schools, moved their goods on government roads, and had the freedom and protection to move their ideas forward because the government protected them from wrongdoers.
So, with no government, we can logically conclude that these things would not have existed. How does one build a rocketship without an education? How does one move goods needed for the initiative without roads? Do they carry them by hand thousands of miles? How do these creators have any psychic well-being without knowing they will be protected from the citizens by the police and similar agencies? All that is government. All needed to make these things work.
My college professors agree with my opinions, so they are correct.
#statistjujitsu #neoconfederate #racism
Joshua Park

I was about to answer that all the roads are built and maintained by their people, but that might prove my ignorance! where did you find the $12B numbers? I’d love to read more.

On the other hand, we could always look at even direct employees of the state as contractors. (Employment begins with a contract, even if it’s an at-will agreement as here in CA.) Individuals work for hire, regardless of who signs their paycheck. In a sense, everything is built by individuals and “government” is just the system (or idea as Molyneaux would say) that mismanages individual people.
Anonymous

Seems like this could be a good opportunity to apply the “Crusoe” social philosophy to humans landing on another planet.. I could take a stab it, but someone with more intellectual firepower could do it justice.
Anonymous

Rather than asking, “how would roads be built without the state?” we should be asking why we don’t have maglev trains and maybe even flying cars yet. The overproduction of roads leads to a distortion of the market and a focus away from better potential solutions.

Anyway, roads would still be built without government because people want them. Businesses need to get products to buyers and get people to their stores. Workers need to get from their jobs to their homes. People want to visit their friends. So roads will get built, without a doubt, regardless of the state.

But here’s another point I’d like to add: without government subsidies of roads, mass transportation options including things like trains would be much more popular and competitive in the market-place. Society would be much more environmentally friendly without government intervention. Yet the left, which claims to champion environmental causes, insists on big government as a solution when it’s the incentives created in laws that lead to an over-production of roads and cars.

Anyway, regardless, space travel is too important to the future of humanity to be left in government hands.
the_cutter

In the spirit of today’s news of Mr. Clinton winning the ‘father of the year’ award. I bestow upon Mr. Woods and us, his readers, the title of the ‘Mars colonizers of the year’. Mr. Woods, a long speech about the honor would be appreciated!
Anonymous

The idea of a one way ticket to Mars is intriguing, but more likely, Mars One never gets off the ground, and science fiction fans declare the libertarian project a failure. I don’t doubt the possibility of it, least of all the possibility of finding willing astronauts, but I doubt the feasibility of financing it.

A one way ticket presumably is much less than half the cost of a return, but the cost is still huge, presumably billions per colonist, and I doubt that a reality TV show with commercial sponsors can pay for it, particularly after the first astronaut dies; however, I can imagine fans of the project seeking a bailout from states when the voluntary money is insufficient. The science fiction fan in me would love to be proven wrong, but I remain very skeptical.

A human colony in Antarctica is orders of magnitude more practical than a colony on Mars, but no private colonies exist in Antarctica, because … you know … who would want to live in Antarctica? Even Alaska, which is far more hospitable than Antarctica, attracts few immigrants without state subsidies. Once you get over the quasi-religious idea that living on Mars is somehow grander, the conclusion is the same. Why not colonize the moon or Earth orbiting space stations instead, for that matter?

A seastead is a real possibility for people who aren’t incredibly wealthy in the foreseeable future, and I’m still hopeful that something like the Free State Project can achieve liberty in my lifetime by attracting a critical mass of libertarians large enough and localized enough to secede non-violently from an established state.

If libertarians want to prove something to the world, let them build a self-sustaining (through productivity and trade), practically stateless community of tens of thousands of people that becomes a magnet and a model for others … sort of like my neck of the woods used to be. Libertarians don’t need to prove that they can ape a Big Government boondoggle.
http://plenarchist.wordpress.com/ plenarchist

Here’s a link to Caltrans Div of Construction:

http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/construc/

You can also Google >> caltrans annual construction budget. I think I did that. Every state DOT to my knowledge will make such information public and publish budget data.
http://www.facebook.com/andrew.b.schmidt Andrew Benjamin Schmidt

People got a fresh start at human civilization in america but it turned bad.
Humans are and will always be sinful no matter what planet they are on.
This is why they are in need of a Saviour